The Episcopal Body United to the Pope:
Its Authority in the Church, According to the Documents of the First Vatican Council
Jerome Hamer O. P.
January 1961
1. A Single Subject, but a Composite One, of Supreme Power in the Church?
On Tuesday, July 5, 1870, Bishop Frédéric Zinelli of Treviso took the floor to report “in the name of the Deputation of the Faith” on the amendments proposed by the Council Fathers to Chapter III of the first Constitution De Ecclesia (Pastor aeternus).
There were many amendments. The reporter devoted more or less attention to them according to their relative importance. He dwelt particularly on two amendments, numbered 35 and 36, which had been proposed respectively by Bishop Joseph Papp-Szilágyi de Illesfalva, Bishop of Grosswardein (Hungary), of the Greek-Romanian rite, and Bishop Aimé Guilbert, Bishop of Gap.
Here is how Bishop Zinelli summarized these proposals:
“The most reverend authors of the two amendments would like the Vatican Council to sanction the principle that the whole of supreme ecclesiastical power does not reside in the Roman Pontiff alone, but only in the Roman Pontiff together with the bishops.”
This summary is precise. It corresponds exactly to the proposals expressed in the amendments.
Yet their authors came from two quite different points on the horizon. The first, a bishop of an Eastern rite, was concerned not to close the door to separated Eastern Christians. The second was favorable, though moderately so, to the Gallican positions of the minority. He would provide several proofs of this during the Council. He would be among the 88 who, on July 13, 1870, voted non placet—that is, refused to approve the Constitution Pastor aeternus.
These two men agreed on the question that concerns us here.
The first affirmed:
“All the governing power of the Church consists in the episcopate together with its primate, the Roman Pontiff; in other words, the government of the Church of Christ is Petrine-apostolic.”
For the second, papal primacy:
“is not that absolute and total power which Christ gave to the Church.”
It was therefore impossible to set the power of the Supreme Pontiff in opposition to:
“that power of the bishops, which they exercise all together with the successor of Peter as legislators and judges of the faith.”¹
Before and during the First Vatican Council, this thesis found its theologian in Bishop Henri Maret, titular Bishop of Sura and Dean of the Faculty of Theology at the Sorbonne. Here is how he expressed it in the preface to his major work:
“The Church, we believe, is an effectively tempered monarchy of aristocracy (...). The Pope is, by divine right, the supreme head of the Church; the bishops, by divine right, participate under his authority in the general government of the religious society. Spiritual sovereignty is therefore composed of two essential elements: one principal, the papacy; the other subordinate, the episcopate.
“Infallibility, which constitutes the highest attribute of spiritual sovereignty, is necessarily composed of the essential elements of that sovereignty. It is found with absolute certainty only in the concurrence and agreement of the Pope with the bishops, and of the bishops with the Pope. The absolutely binding rule of the Catholic faith, under the sanction of the penalties prescribed for heresy, is likewise located in this concurrence and agreement of the two elements of spiritual sovereignty. Such is the essential basis of the constitution of the Church.”²
As formulated by the authors of the amendments, summarized by Bishop Zinelli, and explained in this quotation from Bishop Maret, the position amounts to recognizing in the Church only one single subject of supreme power—but a composite subject in which the Pope and the bishops each have their respective part.
2. The Response of the Deputation
of the Faith
Bishop Zinelli’s response to the two amendments was an outright rejection. These texts were absolutely contrary to:
“the position of the Deputation of the Faith, which rests upon Scripture, Tradition, and the definitions of the Councils. When these sources of revelation are considered, it becomes clear that a full and supreme power (plenam eamque supremam in Ecclesia potestatem) was given to Peter and his successors, in such a way that this fullness cannot be limited by any human power superior to it, its sole limits being constituted by natural law and divine law.”
But he could not invite the Council Fathers to reject these amendments by their votes without at the same time proposing a positive explanation of the role assigned to the episcopate in the government of the Church.
“Some most reverend Fathers may perhaps say: Does this full and supreme power not also reside in an ecumenical council? Was it not to all the Apostles that Christ promised his presence? Was it not to the Apostles that he said: ‘Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven (...)’? We readily concede this.”
There follows a crucial development, which we summarize in the following points.
1. A sovereign and full ecclesiastical power over all the faithful (in fideles omnes) resides in the body of bishops united with its head.
“The bishops assembled with their head in an ecumenical council, in which case they represent the whole Church, or dispersed but united with their head, in which case they constitute the Church (quo in casu sunt ipsa Ecclesia), truly possess the fullness of power.”
2. Fidelity to the scriptural revelation, which leads us to recognize the full and supreme power (plena et suprema potestas) in the Church united with its head, must also lead us to affirm that this full and supreme power was given to Peter and his successors independently even of any common action with the other bishops.
3. Because these two powers are not distinct and separate, every danger of dualism and confusion is excluded.
“To separate the head from the members is characteristic of those who subject the Pope to the bishops considered collectively or represented by the general council. In that case, we could indeed have on one side the Pontiff, even in his capacity as Supreme Pontiff, and on the other the bishops.”
Our position is clearly different:
“If the Supreme Pontiff, together with the bishops, whether dispersed or assembled, truly makes use in solidarity (in solidum) of the full and supreme power, no conflict is possible. Since the full and supreme power (plena et suprema potestas) cannot truly exist in a body separated from its head, individual bishops, whatever their number, so long as the Pope is absent, cannot in any way exercise the full and supreme power without their head. By contrast, as we have said, the Supreme Pontiff, as head, can exercise his supreme authority even independently of the cooperation of the bishops.”
What is the authority of this text, whose content appears to us so important?
It is not the opinion of some theologian or even of one Council Father among others. It is a declaration made by the spokesman of the Deputation of the Faith and in its name. Regarding the two amendments, Bishop Zinelli concluded his explanation by saying:
“This was absolutely necessary, in order to show the serious reasons that led the Deputation of the Faith to exclude the proposed amendments, which contained ideas that were somewhat dangerous, contrary to the intention of their authors.”
It must be added that this declaration was made to explain and justify the meaning of a vote proposed to the Fathers. The record of the session tells us that the Fathers followed the Deputation’s guidance. The amendments were rejected by an almost unanimous assembly (fere omnes rejecerunt).
It is for the theologian to assess the value of this document, without exaggerating it. Certainly, this text does not bind our faith. Nor does it settle theological controversies. Nevertheless, in this matter and on this occasion, Bishop Zinelli can be regarded as a particularly privileged and authoritative witness to the thinking of the Deputation of the Faith and also, though to a lesser degree, to that of the Council assembly.³
3. Father Kleutgen’s Schema
The standing enjoyed by this position among the Council members is further demonstrated by Father Kleutgen’s schema.
As is known, the Constitution Pastor aeternus, bearing the title First Dogmatic Constitution on the Church of Christ, was intended to be followed by a second constitution, whose drafting was entrusted to Father Joseph Kleutgen, S.J. He had already contributed successfully to the revision of the schema De Fide.⁴
Although a theologian of considerable distinction, Father Kleutgen had not been invited to help prepare the Council’s work. For the task assigned to him, however, he had at his disposal both the original schema De Ecclesia Christi, distributed at the General Congregation on January 21, 1870, and the observations of the Council Fathers on its first eleven chapters and on the additional chapter.⁵
The latter text, concerning infallibility, was not communicated until March 6. In drafting the Constitution Pastor aeternus, Chapter XI and the additional chapter were detached from the original schema.
These remarks seem useful to me for understanding Father Kleutgen’s working method in preparing his project, entitled Revised Schema of the Second Constitution on the Church of Christ, Reworked According to the Observations of the Most Reverend Fathers. It was not published until 1927.⁶
The title itself is a complete program. Father Kleutgen was constantly concerned to make the fullest possible use of the observations made by the Council members throughout the assembly’s proceedings. The *relatio*⁷ accompanying the schema, and serving as its commentary, is filled with expressions such as these: “Many Fathers believe...”; “some Fathers affirm...”; “some Fathers wish...”; “several Fathers proposed...”; “many Fathers were displeased by...”; “some were offended by the assertion...,” and so forth.
One senses that the author is in constant dialogue with the bishops, eager to produce a document capable of winning broad approval and also of convincing those who were hesitant by enlightening them about the deeper reasons for the proposed texts.
The Council was interrupted. What would have become of this document had it been presented to the Deputation of the Faith and to the Council assembly? It is rather pointless to ask the question. We cannot know what might have happened.
What seems indisputable to me is that Father Kleutgen’s schema is, as a whole, based on a good summary of the positions of a large majority of the Fathers. It was written by a perceptive man who had participated from within in the Council’s work and who had already demonstrated his abilities in the preparation of the Constitution on the Catholic faith [De Filius].
I do not hesitate to say that Father Kleutgen’s document is the least distorted echo we possess of the shared convictions of a very considerable portion of the assembly at the moment when it separated.
The historian and the theologian can say nothing more. None of this was defined, and none of it was discussed ex professo at the First Vatican Council. But this in no way diminishes the exceptional value, within its proper category, of Father Kleutgen’s testimony.
In the chapter of his schema devoted to the ecclesiastical hierarchy—Chapter IV—Father Kleutgen takes care to present the doctrine in precise and clear language, readily accessible to the faithful, without resorting to technical terminology. Here are some passages:
“The bishops, each in his own diocese or assembled in synods, alone decide (decernunt) matters of doctrine and discipline, enact laws, and exercise judicial authority (...).
“Certainly, the bishops also share (expertes non sunt) in the supreme responsibility of teaching and governing the universal Church. The power of binding and loosing, which was given to Peter alone, was also granted to the college of Apostles, though united with its head, as the Lord’s words testify: ‘Truly, I say to you: whatever you bind on earth shall be held bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be held loosed.’
“For this reason, from the earliest days of the Church, the decrees and laws of ecumenical councils have rightly been received by the faithful with the greatest reverence and equal obedience, as the judgments of God and the will of the Holy Spirit.
“But since primacy was given to Peter, in order to manifest both the unity of the Church and the uniqueness of the See, the other bishops are subject to the Roman Pontiff: each individually in the administration of his own Church, and all together in the conduct of affairs common to the (universal) Church (...).
“They cannot regulate or decide anything whatsoever for the universal Church unless they have been called by the reigning Pontiff to share in his solicitude (in partem sollicitudinis vocati). And although, when assembled by him, they issue decrees of faith and disciplinary laws as true judges, it nevertheless belongs to the Roman Pontiff not only to summon and dissolve general councils of bishops, but also to direct and confirm them.”⁸
4. The Theological Explanation of the Double Subject
It will have been noticed that Father Kleutgen sees the text of Matthew 18:18 as the scriptural foundation for the bishops’ role in teaching and governing the universal Church.
In the relatio, the author gives us the theological foundations of Chapter IV, following precisely the line of Bishop Zinelli’s position.⁹ It is probably unnecessary to repeat here what the two have in common. We shall limit ourselves to the points on which Kleutgen develops the position further, either through more precise formulations, new arguments, or responses to possible objections.
After emphasizing, on the one hand, that bishops called to share in the solicitude of the Supreme Pontiff are not merely advisers but true judges and definers of doctrine, and, on the other, that the entire fullness of supreme power resides in the Roman Pontiff, Father Kleutgen concludes:
“Consequently, this power exists in a double subject: in the body of bishops united with the Pope, and in the Pope alone.”
The introduction of the term subject (subjectum) is a valuable clarification of Bishop Zinelli’s thought: the fullness of supreme power (plenitudo supremae potestatis) is absolutely one; its presence in two different subjects does not multiply it.⁹ᵃ
The doctrine is not new, Father Kleutgen adds:
“It was commonly accepted even by those who, in the controversy following the Councils of Constance and Basel, defended the positions of the Roman Pontiff. It is sufficient for us to cite here the testimony of Bellarmine. 'Those who teach,' this author writes, 'that the Pope is above a council celebrated without him also teach that the same authority exists intensively in the Pope alone and in a council with the Pope, although extensively this authority is greater in the council (intensive licet extensive major sit in concilio). Consequently, such a council cannot judge or condemn the Pope... because an equal has no power over his equal'.”¹⁰
In Father Kleutgen’s view, the thesis of the double subject is simply another formulation of the teaching of Saint Robert Bellarmine.
Between these two subjects, distinct but not separated, discord is impossible. The episcopal body exists as a subject only in union with the Pope.
If, in a council, the bishops formulate a decree that the Supreme Pontiff does not approve, that act cannot be regarded as a decision of the supreme power (non est sententia summae potestatis).
“Moreover,” Father Kleutgen adds, “it must be observed that if by the episcopal body we mean not the bishops assembled in a council, but the bishops dispersed throughout the whole world, it can never happen that the episcopal body will hold an opinion opposed to that of the Pope in matters concerning which the Church cannot err or defect.”
The author of the relatio offers three proofs of this:
The promise made to the Church that it would endure forever;
The divine assistance promised not only to Peter but also to the body of Apostles, in the words: “Behold, I am with you...” (Matthew 28:20);
Finally, the text of Matthew 18:18, already cited by Bishop Zinelli.
At the end of his account of this part of Chapter IV, Father Kleutgen concludes:
“The decree itself sets forth an absolutely certain dogma of faith.”
He is referring to the decree concerning the role of the bishops proposed in the chapter’s text.
The explanations given in the relatio certainly do not possess, in their author’s eyes, the same authority as the decree itself. Nevertheless, although they belong simply to theology, let us note that they are offered here to account for an incontestable truth of faith and to protect it against Gallican positions. They rest upon an important biblical foundation, are in complete harmony with Bishop Zinelli’s authoritative declarations, continue the teaching of Bellarmine, and face no competing explanations of comparable authority.
These are elements that should enable us to determine closely the theological status of the doctrine of the two inadequately distinct subjects at the time of the First Vatican Council.
5. Certain Difficulties
Objections have been raised against the theology of the double subject as presented above. The two principal objections are as follows:
This theology is incompatible with the primacy as defined at the First Vatican Council.
It is also incompatible with the immediate conferral of the power of jurisdiction by the Supreme Pontiff, as taught by the communior sententia—the more common opinion—among theologians.
We find this double accusation forcefully expressed by Father Domenico Palmieri.¹¹ His book first appeared in 1887.
We are convinced that this author would have viewed matters differently had all the documents of the First Vatican Council been readily available to him. The seventh volume of the Collectio Lacensis, which contains the acts and proceedings of that Council, including Bishop Zinelli’s report, was not published until 1890. And, as we have said, Father Kleutgen’s schema was not published until thirty-seven years later (1927).
It was precisely in the context of explaining the primacy of the Supreme Pontiff that Bishop Zinelli formulated the doctrine of the full and supreme power (plena et suprema potestas) residing also in the episcopal body united with the Pope.
We saw this above in connection with the General Congregation of July 5. To dispel all doubts, the reporter for the Deputation of the Faith returned to the matter at the following General Congregation, on Monday, July 11:
“As for the fullness of the power of jurisdiction in the Pontiff—a fullness that must be accepted in its entirety—there is no longer any reason to hesitate.
“In granting the Supreme Pontiff the entire fullness of the power of jurisdiction, we would to some extent injure the dignity of the ecumenical council. Let no one be troubled by this concern! Indeed, what I explained in our last General Congregation concerning the full and supreme power (potestas plena et suprema) of the ecumenical council remains firmly established.
“Properly understood and within the framework of the conditions and declarations I have sufficiently discussed, this full and supreme power is in particular accord (unice consistre potest) with the doctrine of faith which recognizes in the Sovereign Pontiff the fullness of supreme power” (12). Fr. Kleutgen’s position is situated precisely within the same perspective..”¹²
Father Kleutgen’s position belongs to precisely the same perspective.
The documents of the First Vatican Council also clearly refute the second objection.
The assembly did not intend to settle the disputed question of the origin or derivation of episcopal jurisdiction.
At the Congregation of July 16—the last Council session—after the overall vote on the Constitution Pastor aeternus had taken place on July 13, Bishop Zinelli reported on reservations expressed by certain Fathers concerning Chapter III. He declared:
“Theologians debate whether the power of jurisdiction of bishops derives immediately from God or immediately from the Supreme Pontiff.
“Those among Catholic theologians who affirm that the power of jurisdiction derives immediately from God nevertheless declare, as is right, that jurisdiction is conferred by God in true and full dependence upon the Supreme Pontiff.
“This question, which was so vigorously debated at the Council of Trent, was not one that the Supreme Pontiff wished to settle at that time. Certainly, neither have we wished to define it through our canon or through the qualifying phrase inserted into it.”¹³
He was referring to the canon that follows Chapter III.
In substance, Bishop Zinelli had already declared on July 5, in the middle of the passage in which he proposed the doctrine of the full and supreme power attributed to the body of bishops united with the Pope, that this question was being left open.¹⁴ A similar statement appears in Father Kleutgen’s schema.¹⁵
In the eyes of the Deputation of the Faith, its reporter, and its theologian, it was therefore clear that the doctrine of the double subject did not in any way require, as its necessary foundation, a predetermined choice in the question of the derivation of jurisdiction.
In itself, either of the two theses debated at Trent can lead to a theology of the double subject. This is already sufficient to adequately answer the objection that sees an incompatibility between one of the competing theses and the doctrine of the duplex subjectum.
But there is more. Father Joseph Kleutgen points out that the thesis of the papal origin of jurisdiction is the longe communior sententia—by far the more common opinion.¹⁶ By this statement, he clearly implies that it is also his own position.
Yet no one has proposed the theology of the inadequately distinct double subject more clearly than he has.
6. The Collective Act of the Episcopal Body
Going somewhat beyond the historical investigation undertaken thus far, we would like to draw attention to one point.
When assembled in a council, the episcopal body united with the Pope exercises its full and supreme power (plena et suprema potestas) through a collective act. This is a consensus.
a) Certainly, within this consensus, the Pope plays the decisive role of head. It belongs to him to summon, direct, and dissolve the conciliar assembly, and to confirm its acts.
b) But this in no way has the effect of placing the action of the Council alongside the action of the Pope as though they were two separate acts. Properly speaking, this is a collective, united act.
In the Council, the Pope does not merely invite the episcopate to associate itself with his personal decision. Although internally hierarchical, it is a genuine consensus in which the episcopate has its share of co-responsibility.
It is a “concert,” to use a term that is somewhat outdated today but was in common use during the nineteenth century.
c) This co-responsibility exercises its proper authority only in the act of the collective body—that is, at the moment when the decision is made by all the bishops who have been called to share in the Pope’s solicitude (in partem sollicitudinis vocati) and is confirmed by the Pope.
But it is rooted in an aptitude [the triple munera], in a foundation of divine right, belonging to those who in the Church are the “successors of the Apostles.”¹⁷
Openness to the universal needs of the Church and readiness to respond to the call to share in its solicitude (in partem sollicitudinis) thus constitute an essential and necessary dimension of the episcopal office by virtue of divine institution.
This openness and readiness naturally presuppose constant attention to the problems of a Church wholly engaged in a universal mission.
d) All this seems to be well expressed and explained by the theology of the double subject.
The full and supreme power (plena et suprema potestas) is exercised first through a personal act: the act of the Supreme Pontiff, heir to the promises made to Peter alone. This personal act corresponds to a personal subject, the Roman Pontiff. Such is the teaching of Chapter III of Pastor aeternus and its corresponding canon.
The same full and supreme power is also expressed through a collective act, in keeping with the promise made collectively to the college of Apostles under Peter’s direction.
How can this collective act, which we have described above, be explained without recourse to a collective subject constituted by the episcopal body united with the Pope?
Bishop Zinelli and Father Kleutgen intended to say nothing else.
The same analysis should be undertaken, with the necessary adjustments, concerning the episcopate dispersed throughout the world but united with the Pope.
It too possesses the full and supreme power (plena et suprema potestas), but how does it exercise it?
The ordinary and universal Magisterium authoritatively proposes the faith. Yet, apart from other criteria, it is not easy to identify with certainty the points on which a consensus has been reached in a general moral unanimity, with the express or tacit assent of the Pope.
For the reasons we have set out throughout this note, the theology of the inadequately distinct double subject deserves the full attention of theologians.¹⁸
Those who have proposed it have more than one reason to ask for our hearing. But it is not an absolute position. The inquiry remains open.
Another theology may be valid, but only on the condition that it fully accounts both for the dogmatic teaching of the Constitution Pastor aeternus concerning the primacy of the successor of Peter and for the scriptural and traditional evidence concerning the episcopal function understood in its full breadth—a function that the First Vatican Council intended to define at the time when its work was interrupted.
Bishop Zinelli and Father Kleutgen would be the first to agree with this.¹⁹
Jérôme Hamer, O. P.
Originally published in Revue des Sciences philosophiques et théologiques
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Footnotes
1. We quote from Mansi, Amplissima Collectio Conciliorum. Bishop Zinelli speaks “in the name of the Deputation itself” (nomine ipsius Deputationis): vol. 52, col. 1100; he summarizes the two amendments in col. 1108. Their complete text can be found in cols. 1091–1092. Bishop Papp-Szilágyi’s speech proposing and justifying his amendment is in cols. 601–605. Bishop Guilbert proposed his amendment during a public session without any accompanying commentary: col. 620.
2. H. L. G. Maret, Du concile général et de la paix religieuse, vol. I, Paris, 1869, pp. xx–xxi.
3. The section of Bishop Zinelli’s report devoted to the two amendments can be found in Mansi, vol. 52, cols. 1108–1110; the voting result is in col. 1118.
4. Here I rely on the statements of Th. Granderath, Histoire du concile du Vatican, French translation, vol. II, second part, Brussels, 1911, pp. 12–13.
5. See these observations in Mansi, vol. 51, cols. 731–1072.
6. In Mansi, vol. 53, cols. 308–317. This text is followed by Joseph Kleutgen’s Relatio de schemate reformato, cols. 317–332.
7. In one passage of the relatio (col. 322), Father Kleutgen shows concern to make use of an amendment proposed on Chapter III of Pastor aeternus. He therefore does not limit himself in any way to the observations on the original schema. The entire Council is taken into account.
8. Mansi, vol. 53, col. 310.
9. The commentary on Chapter IV: vol. 53, cols. 320–322.
9a. Bishop Zinelli had, however, already used the word subject (subjectum) at the General Congregation of July 11, 1870:
“For fullness essentially signifies that a quality is present in a subject in its entirety” (Plenitudo enim essentialiter significat qualitatem inesse subjecto in toto suo ambitu).
Mansi, vol. 52, col. 1201.
10. The passage from Bellarmine quoted here by Kleutgen is found in De Conciliis, Book II, Chapter 13.
11. Father Domenico Palmieri writes:
“By Christ’s institution there is not a double supreme power in the Church, nor is there a double subject endowed with supreme power (...). Indeed, supreme power itself is the power of primacy, and its one and only subject is the Roman Pontiff (...).
“Nor is such power conferred immediately by God upon the bishops themselves, insofar as they constitute one body, whether dispersed or assembled in a synod (...). For the institution of primacy excludes supreme power from the body of pastors.”
Tractatus de Romano Pontifice, 4th revised edition, edited by Joseph Filograssi, Rome, 1931, p. 491.
We have emphasized in this text what seems to us its most characteristic passage.
One will have noticed:
Father Palmieri does not distinguish between supreme power and the subject of that power. Since the power is necessarily one, he concludes that its subject must also be one.
He can understand the doctrine that the episcopal body, together with the Pope, constitutes a second subject of supreme power only from the perspective that God immediately confers this power of jurisdiction. This is what motivates his categorical rejection.
Father Antonius Straub, who had the advantage of knowing the Collectio Lacensis, which he cites, has clearly demonstrated the weakness of certain arguments advanced against the thesis of the inadequately distinct double subject. See his De Ecclesia Christi, Innsbruck, 1912, vol. II, nos. 795–796, pp. 157–161.
If Father Palmieri is so unreceptive to the thesis of the inadequately distinct double subject, it is because he engages in controversy with only one interlocutor: Father Jean-Vincent Bolgeni, author of L’Episcopato, ossia la potestà di governare la Chiesa, published in Rome in 1789.
Broadly speaking, Bolgeni held two positions: first, what we may call the theory of the inadequately distinct double subject; and second, the immediate origin from God, through episcopal consecration, of the universal jurisdiction of the episcopal body.
For him, these two positions were inseparable. The first depended upon the second.
Bishop Zinelli and Father Kleutgen, who do not in fact cite Bolgeni, have clearly shown that the first position can be maintained in complete independence of the second.
From now on, discussion of the double subject must engage with these two latter authors.
12. Mansi, vol. 52, cols. 1201–1202.
13. Mansi, vol. 52, col. 1314.
14. Mansi, vol. 52, col. 1109.
15. Mansi, vol. 53, col. 321.
16. Ibid.
17. Although it concerns a different context, we would like to recall here the words of Pius XII in his encyclical Fidei Donum:
“Doubtless, it was to the Apostle Peter alone and to his successors, the Roman Pontiffs, that Jesus entrusted the entirety of his flock: ‘Feed my lambs, feed my sheep’ (John 21:16–18).
“But although each bishop is the proper shepherd only of the portion of the flock entrusted to his care, his status as a legitimate successor of the Apostles by divine institution makes him jointly responsible for the apostolic mission of the Church, in accordance with Christ’s words to his Apostles: ‘As the Father has sent me, so I send you’ (John 20:21).
“This mission, which must embrace all nations and all times (cf. Matthew 28:19–20), did not cease with the death of the Apostles; it continues in the person of all bishops in communion with the Vicar of Jesus Christ.”
AAS, 1957, vol. 49, pp. 236–237.
An excellent commentary on this text can be found in the chapter devoted to the “Universal Mission” of bishops by Bishop A. M. Charue, in his recent book Le clergé diocésain tel qu’un évêque le voit et le souhaite, Tournai and Paris, 1960.
18. Let us formulate the position in Father Kleutgen’s own words:
“The entire fullness of supreme power is in a double subject: in the body of bishops joined to the Pope, and in the Pope alone” (Tota plenitudo supremae potestatis est in duplici subjecto, in episcoporum corpore papae conjuncto, et in papa solo).
Mansi, vol. 53, col. 321. We reproduce Father Kleutgen’s text with purely grammatical modifications so that part of a sentence becomes a complete proposition.
We have not considered it necessary to provide a bibliography here. One can establish it indirectly through the bibliography supplied by G. Ruffino, “Gli Organi dell’Infallibilità della Chiesa,” in Salesianum, 16 (1954), pp. 39–76. See the 35 titles cited on p. 40.
In fact, that bibliography concerns the double subject of infallibility. This is a different subject from ours: we are dealing with potestas, or power. But since the two themes are related, one can sometimes trace one back through the other.
19. These pages follow an earlier article on the question; they supplement and clarify it. See J. Hamer, “Note sur la collégialité épiscopale. Les préliminaires du concile du Vatican,” in Revue des Sciences philosophiques et théologiques, 44 (1960), pp. 40–50.
